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Reveling in the Tension Between Two Stylistic Worlds

In the late 90's, the bassist Chris Lightcap was working in what was perceived as the looser, freer perimeters of jazz, as well as in its mainstream. At the time, it was rarer for musicians to play in both those worlds, and when Mr. Lightcap organized his own group, he seemed to be uniting two attitudes toward jazz that had become unnecessarily estranged. There was strong rhythm, good intonation between sections of vamping, a natural harmonic cooperation. But there were also energy-building whirlpools of action and reaction, spilling outside a given rhythm and tonal center.

He's still working in those two worlds, but they have intersected much more. His quintet's show at the Cornelia Street Cafe on Friday showed how jazz has changed in a short time. Now his band sounds much more like what's happening around New York.

The tenor saxophonists are now Tony Malaby and Mark Turner, and they have completely different styles. In jazz's past, a small group with two tenors usually suggested a contest: Dexter Gordon and Wardell Gray, John Coltrane and Sonny Rollins, Johnny Griffin and Eddie (Lockjaw) Davis. The tenors would try to outpower one another, but eventually came together by the end of a tune. Mr. Lightcap uses them more like repelling magnetic forces: he has hired players with disparate styles, who rigorously pursue their own trains of thought, sometimes simultaneously. There was active tension in the music, and it could be fascinating to feel it in the room.

Mr. Malaby likes the lower-middle range, and he ran through his solos, fast and articulate, riding the groove and cooperating with it. Mr. Turner chose austere pecks and sweeps. Higher-pitched and lighter-toned, he was trying to make individual notes really sing, and resisting the natural flow of the music.

There is now a pianist in the band, Craig Taborn. This group once seemed to sound as open as it did because it lacked a chordal instrument. But nothing should be absolute in jazz. Some of Mr. Lightcap's newer writing, like the gospelish "Silvertone," used Mr. Taborn to define its harmonic movement. In other places, Mr. Taborn exploded whatever harmonies the band was working with, while tightening the rhythm section.

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Improvising in long, fluid ideas, Mr. Taborn's solos were housewreckers. He repeated phrases for emphasis, used eighth-note swing and tremolos to build his momentum, and worked percussively, fitting in between Mr. Lightcap's strong, thick notes, and the patterns played by the drummer, Gerald Cleaver. These three have worked together on their own, as Mr. Taborn's trio, and the coherence was obvious.

None of it sounded as if Mr. Lightcap was mounting an argument for the compatibility of disparate styles. Jazz has become more ecumenical. And Mr. Lightcap's band is more powerful, too.